


The Prison You Deserve

by AdrianaintheSnow



Series: Adriana Snow's Sanders Sides Writing Starter Pack [7]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Brief allusions to sexual assult, Burns, Fear, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mind Reading, Past Abuse, Past Child Abuse, Past Torture, Self-Harm, Though the self-harm is not for the usual self-harm reasons, Unsympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Unsympathetic Deceit Sanders, it's more spite self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:01:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22058980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdrianaintheSnow/pseuds/AdrianaintheSnow
Summary: Virgil should have known better. Trying to help only ever ended badly for him.After a misunderstanding, Virgil gets thrown into the most infamous prison across all of the kingdoms. Where the most evil criminals are thrown to get what they deserve at the hands of nightmarish creatures from the void.Luckily (for once) Virgil really didn’t deserve it. Trusting that this isn’t just a cruel trick and he isn’t actually going to be tortured though is going to take a while.(In which Patton is a eldritch horror, telepathic nightmare, and still is the sweetest thing on the planet and off it.)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Series: Adriana Snow's Sanders Sides Writing Starter Pack [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1907377
Comments: 259
Kudos: 482
Collections: TS Hurt Comfort To Soothe The Soul





	1. Chapter 1

One would think that, by this point in his life, Virgil would know better. He’d literally just been minding his own business, going on a walk outside of town. Sure, it had been at about 3am which may seem suspicious, especially for guards near the castle walls, but to be fair to himself, he hadn’t quite known he’d gotten that close to the castle. After all, it had been _really_ dark seeing as it was 3 o’clock in the morning.

Even if it hadn’t been, it wasn’t as though Virgil had been paying attention to what he’d been doing. He’d woken from a nightmare, the type that clung to the inside of your ribs for days afterwards. The choices had been scream or walk until he couldn’t feel his feet anymore, and, considering he was already on the bad side of his neighbor and he didn’t want the man’s dogs to ‘accidently get off their leashes’ again, he decided to walk.

When he saw a crumpled body on the ground, he should have just high-tailed it the fuck out of there like a rational human being, but no. No, he had to go check on the person, and, with just his luck, the man bleeding out on the ground had to be a castle guard that had gotten attacked by an enemy soldier trying to sneak in to assassinate the prince while the king was away. At least, that is what the guard had told him while Virgil tried to stop the bleeding. The guard had managed to send out an alert despite being gravely injured which was great for everyone except the assassin. Oh, and Virgil.

Virgil knew a lot about how to stop bleeding by this point in his life, else he himself would likely be dead. So, the guard actually had a chance of living, since he’d gotten there soon after the attack. God, Virgil hoped he lived, not only because he seemed like an okay dude from the few words he’d managed to choke out before he’d fallen unconscious from the blood loss, but because Virgil was pretty sure him waking up and telling everyone Virgil hadn’t been the one to stab him was the only way he was going to get out of this situation intact. Of course, with Virgil’s luck, if the man woke and if he woke before Virgil was fucking executed, he would wake with no memory of the moments before he lost consciousness.

This was Virgil’s life.

Virgil wondered idly if he really weighed that little or if the guard that was drag/carrying him along was just really jacked. He’d like to tell her that if she untied Virgil’s ankles, he’d be perfectly willing to walk wherever he was going as it would be much more pleasant than this, but the rope between his teeth didn’t allow for that.

He was brought into what he could only assume was the throne room and Virgil was half shoved, half dropped to the floor in front of two men, one he recognized and one he did not.

“We found the assassin sire,” the guard who had been dragging him addressed Prince Roman. “He attacked one of the castle guards and was fleeing the scene when we got there.” Virgil wanted to say that no, he’d been trying to go find help, but again, the rope posed an issue.

“He’s kind of scrawny for an assassin,” the prince responded.

“They come in many sizes,” the man with him pointed out. “One doesn’t need to be able to lift a sword if one is quite and quick enough.” Virgil would have liked to point out that the guard he allegedly attacked had been, in fact, stabbed by a sword. But.

“Fair enough.” The prince studied him. “The amount of blood on him does lend toward the conclusion he was the attempted murderer.” Dammit, Virgil should have just run home. He should have known trying to help would only end with him here.

He’d only been trying to help.

They continued to discuss briefly over his head. The guard gave her perception based on her limited knowledge of the situation. Which, fair conclusion considering, but not the truth. Not that Virgil could correct her. He was starting to wonder if he’d ever even get a chance to explain before being executed.

“What about you?” the prince finally asked. “Do you have something to say.” Virgil nodded desperately. “Untie the gag,” he demanded. The guard rushed to obey.

Virgil didn’t even give himself time to breath. “It wasn’t me,” he said immediately, “I was just going for a walk. I live in the village down the hill and didn’t even know how close to the castle I’d gotten. I found that guard and I tried to help because I know some first aid, and, when I didn’t think I could do anything else on my own, I went to go get help and that’s when they found me. I didn’t stab him.”

“That’s an awfully long walk and awfully early in the day for one,” the man beside the prince said.

“And an awful lot of blood for a healer,” the prince said his hand coming to Virgil’s face and wiping away a bit of the blood streaked across his cheek with his thumb, deceitfully tender for the cold suspicion in his eyes.

“H-he,” Virgil stuttered, “there was a lot of blood to begin with.”

“Hmm,” the prince replied. “Let’s see.” He crouched down in front of Virgil and reached out a hand for his cloak. Virgil swallowed and stayed as still as possible, as though he were coming at him with a knife instead of his hand. He was unsure what the prince was doing but almost certain it wouldn’t end well. With gentle fingers, he undid the top couple of clasps, just enough to loosen it so he could pull it and his shirt to the side and… oh fuck. “That’s quite a strange mark for someone who says they live in the village down the hill,” he said, undoubtedly seeing the panic in Virgil’s eyes when the brand on his shoulder was revealed. He pressed his thumb to it, still sticky with the guard’s cooled blood. “Not quite so strange for an assassin sent from the Neadevar Kingdom.” Oh, would you look at that, a decade and a kingdom away from him and the lying snake was still managing to ruin his entire fucking life.

“I’m a refugee, I swear. I’ve been living here for almost a decade. I didn’t even want it then.”

The prince released his shirt to grab his face and make him meet his eyes. “I don’t believe you.”

“Please,” Virgil chocked, “just at least wait and see if the guard they say I stabbed wakes up. If he does, he’ll tell you it wasn’t me.”

The prince arched an eyebrow. “Why?” he asked. “So, you’ll have a chance to escape and finish what you started? I was the target after all, wasn’t I?”

Virgil swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Please I don’t want to die.”

“Oh, you’re not going to die,” the prince told him and even though that’s exactly what he’d just requested, Virgil felt his stomach drop. In his worry about execution, he’d somehow forgotten how many worse things there were. The prince finally released him and stepped away. “Just send him to the dungeon,” he said waving his hand dismissively. Oh. Oh, please god, no.

“You can’t just keep sending everyone to the dungeon,” the other man hissed, but Virgil could barely hear him over the rushing in his ears.

“Why not?” the prince asked, uncaringly, “It always works.”

“Please no,” Virgil said weakly. Everyone knew the tales of the kingdom’s dungeons. It was a twisty maze of rooms that very few people could navigate. It only had one guard on duty at a time, but it was always enough. The prison didn’t need guards: at least not human ones. There were many legends about what was in the prison and how it got there. People say that it sat on a rift between two worlds and that demons snuck through the veil to torture the poor souls who were imprisoned there with customized nightmares come to life that left some broken and others dead. Others said the building was sentient and telepathic, able to read thoughts and create vivid illusions until its victims eventually were driven to tear apart their own flesh. Others say it was just pumped full of some magical drug that caused you to hallucinate until you couldn’t tell what was real anymore, even if you left the place.

No matter what was true: no one made it out of there intact.

Virgil tried to plead for mercy, for something else, anything else, death even, but the prince had already dismissed him, turning his back and the guard who’d carried him here was already dragging him into an upright position. She paused to shove the gag back in his mouth with a grumble about him being too loud.

By the time they made it to the dungeon, Virgil was in a right state, but his struggles and pleas behind the gag did nothing. He was handed off to another guard at the door to the prison and taking down a maze of hallway he was sure he’d find incomprehensible even if he wasn’t barely starving off a panic attack. The guard didn’t say a word the whole time. They finally stopped at one of a million identical doors. The guard took out a knife and Virgil distantly hoped he would just slit his throat right there and then, but he didn’t. He sliced through the bonds on his wrist and shoved him into the cell before slamming the door shut behind him, leaving Virgil in an almost completely dark, small room with cement walls and only a bed that was more frame than mattress for furniture.

Can’t breathe, can’t breathe, can’t breathe. He tore the rope around his arms the rest of the way off so he could reach up and undo the gag. He tried and tried to suck in a breath, but even without the gag obstructing his breathing, he couldn’t. The world went all fuzzy without oxygen and he curled up into a ball, trying and trying to get some air into his lungs. It didn’t work. It probably didn’t matter. With any luck, he’d died of asphyxiation before whatever fate awaited him got here.

Virgil was not lucky.

That was the last thought he had before his mind stopped functioning at all.


	2. Chapter 2

_There’s one for you._ Patton perked up at the, well, not really voice, more of a blip of knowledge in the unending stream of consciousness that was reality, but Patton liked to think of it as a voice. Patton had a tendency to personify things including himself which is why he identified himself by a name even when he wasn’t bending himself to fit into the construct of human reality. He liked human things more than most of his species (if that was a word that could be applied to the concept of what he was) and he wasn’t sure if that was because of his usual function or if it went the other way round. It didn’t much matter in the end anyway.

He plucked softly on the where and when of the summons to pin it down before gathering the necessary pieces of himself to the forefront of his consciousness. He focused energy for a moment, carving out a place in space and filling it with himself. He built up an approximation of a human body, taking care to add details like warmth and soft fleshy spots. Time settled in the back of his head, locking him into place. He blinked.

His form felt familiar, like a soft old sweater, though one he had patched and redesigned many times before. The location was also a familiar one, with blank walls and little light. His eyes found the unfamiliar thing at the center of the room. It was curled up in a little ball and, oh no, Patton was not an expert on the breathing thing, but he had enough experience that he was pretty sure the current pattern being invoked was nowhere near a good one.

Patton reached out mentally and got a backlash of _panic panic panic_ and winced. He moved forward slowly, but he didn’t think he had to worry about the kiddo starling, he was too far gone. Patton crouched in front of him and put a soft hand on his shoulder. There was a twitch of emotion at the touch, but it wasn’t fear or at least it wasn’t fear that could be distinguished from the rest of the emotions coursing through him at the moment. Patton used his free hand to grab one of the human’s and brought it to his own chest.

“Hey, there, can you breathe with me?” he asked, taking an exaggerated breath. There wasn’t any sign he heard him, but Patton kept breathing in a nice and slow rhythm, occasionally repeating his request for him to match Patton’s breath. Eventually, something seemed to get through to him because his breath stuttered a couple of times and he was clearly trying to match the rhythm Patton was demonstrating. The panic was still there, but it started to dull a bit and his hand fisted in Patton’s shirt. “There you go, good job. Hush,” Patton praised, moving to rub his back a bit. He gave a little hiccup sob but continued to regulate his breathing.

He looked up at Patton, eyes still a bit distant and confused. He wasn’t quite all back yet. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m Patton,” he said brightly. “It’s nice to meet you.” He blinked and Patton could feel it when he snapped back into reality, his eyes cleared, his body went tense, and his breath froze. “No, no, don’t panic again,” Patton fretted, eyes wide. It was too late for that though, as panic was once again spilling from him, not quite the spiraling like fear it had been before, but sharper and throbbing. It made Patton’s bones ache. Patton squeezed his hand, but it didn’t have the desired effect. The human flinched away and started struggling in Patton’s grip, terror slicing through Patton’s chest like a knife and lodging between his ribs. Patton retracted his arms and the human threw himself backwards until he hit the wall and then curled up, hugging his knees to his chest.

He stared at Patton with wide eyes.

“It, uh, it really is okay,” Patton tried. The human didn’t believe him. Patton sighed and got to his feet.

The human went absolutely ballistic on the inside and Patton forced himself to cut off the connection for the moment. He needed to give the human some space, Patton thought. With that thought in mind, he walked away from the man and tapped the opposite wall. It easily unfurled under his hand, molding and stretching itself into another room, perched carefully on the edge of reality. Patton stepped through into the little kitchen.

Patton could have created cooked food instantly, but he chose instead to make it both because he wanted to give the human a bit of time to calm and because Patton simply enjoyed the motions of cooking. He only spent around 20 minutes in the kitchen before he gathered up food onto a plate and slowly eased his way back into the main room. Apparently, giving the human a little space was the right idea as he at least seemed to have himself under control now, watching Patton with alert eyes. Patton smiled at him softly and knelt down a good distance away to put the plate on the ground. He slid it over to him, and it came to a rest near his feet.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Bacon and toast,” Patton told him.

“Why?”

“You’re hungry.” He looked at it dubiously and didn’t make a move to take it. Patton sighed. “I didn’t do anything to it,” Patton promised. Now he looked at Patton dubiously. “If I wanted to drug you or poison you or whatever you’re imagining, I wouldn’t need to put it in food to do it.”

There was a long pause. He reached for the food.

He closed his eyes and braced himself when he took a small bite of bacon as though he expected it to bite him back. There was a sharp spike of panic, but it dulled when nothing happened as he chewed and swallowed. His eyes opened back up and he shoved the rest of the piece of bacon in his mouth. Patton slowly took a seat on the ground with his arms wrapped loosely around his knees, a less tense mirror of his human’s current pose.

He kept his head down facing the food as he ate but watched Patton from the corner of his eye. He finished off the plate and wrapped the arm he was using to eat back around his legs. “Thank you,” he said softly.

“Not a problem kiddo.” The gentleness of his tone did little to calm the clear discontent rolling in the room, but it also didn’t make him panic more.

“What are you going to do to me?” he asked. The fact that the panic in the room was dulled so much made the question sting differently. It was still there of course, but had been carefully tucked away, covered by an exhaustion that ached deep in the bone. Resignation was probably the word.

Patton set his chin on his knees. “Nothing.”

He wasn’t satisfied with that answer, curling closer into himself. “Is that part of it?” he asked. “Are you lulling me into a false sense of security, so it’ll be worse when you start torturing me?”

“You have a rather morbid thought process,” Patton commented. Anger pooled at the back of Patton’s throat. Huh. Perhaps not completely resigned. “No, it’s not,” Patton said. The anger migrated up pulling at his teeth in disbelief. He was a stubborn one.

“I’m not stupid. I know where I am, and I know what you are.”

“And what am I?” Patton asked, just a bit amused.

“You…” he paused. “Okay so I don’t know what you are specifically, but I get the gist, okay. I don’t want to play games.”

“Alright. Then what do you want to do?” he asked.

“Just get on with it,” he spat, jaw set and eyes blazing.

“Get on with what?” he asked.

“Y-you torture people. So just do whatever you are going to do to me already.” There was a bit of crumbling to the anger now, fear wanting to make itself known again and being shoved back.

“That isn’t actually what I am, kiddo,” Patton told him. Another tug at his teeth and Patton wanted to groan in frustration. “What I am, we don’t just hurt people indiscriminately,” he explained. “We read souls and act accordingly.”

“You read souls?” That prompted fear to finally overwhelm the anger: a deep, rolling, gut-wrenching fear. Patton wasn’t sure why as a cursory look at his soul showed very few blips of darkness. Certainly nothing to garner poor treatment.

“I do,” Patton confirmed. “Along with surface emotions. I could go deeper, but that might hurt if I do it wrong and, I reiterate, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I don’t. I don’t understand.”

“You were put here for a crime. You didn’t commit it. You don’t get punished.”

“Oh?” Confusion sparkled though the room for a moment before it was tucked away among the ever-present fear. “So, but you torture other people then?”

“Not me specifically. I _feel_ feel things too much for that. I’m usually called in for things like this or when kids are in trouble. I have a pretty good disappointed frown,” he replied with a proud smile.

Stare.

“Want to see it?” Patton offered.

“No.” It was said too quickly, and Patton wondered what he was thinking that caused the pop and sizzle of fear bubbling in his chest. “Thank you.”

Patton considered him for a few moments, poking his mind a bit. “You are tired,” Patton pointed out and the fear popped a bit more harshly against the inside of his ribcage.

“No.”

“No what?” Patton asked. “No, you’re not tired? Kiddo I don’t have to be able to feel your exhaustion to see the circles under your eyes.” The pops started rolling and shifting up towards his throat again. “Why does that make you angry?” Oh, well there went the anger. Straight back to panic.

“Stop.”

“I’m not doing anything,” Patton said confused.

“You’re in my head.” Oh. Patton blinked.

“Sorry,” Patton said. “I’ll stop digging for a bit if it’ll make you feel better, but I can’t stop myself from picking up things you project.”

He didn’t respond, just gritted his teeth and tucked himself in even tighter into a ball. The movement drew Patton’s attention to rope around the human’s ankles.

“Are you tied up?” Patton asked. He had kept his promise and severed the connection between them, but he wasn’t able to not feel the distrustful, painful, slap across his face. He rubbed his jaw absentmindedly. “I can get you out of that,” Patton offered.

The human looked at him for a long moment.

“Can I come over there?” Patton asked. “I’ll untie the ropes so you can move more easily. I promise I won’t hurt you.”

He hesitated, mulling it over before nodding.

“Okay,” Patton agreed. He stood up and crossed the little room in a couple of moments before getting to his knees in front of him. He had turned his face away in the interim, cheek resting against the cement wall behind him and eyes closed: braced for something. Patton reached out his hands for the rope and tried to not touch him as much as possible as his fingers searched for a weak spot. He was tied up tightly, but haphazardly. Clearly whoever had done it had been more concerned with getting him tied up then the fact that he’d eventually need to be untied. Patton could have just made the rope bend under his hand, but he’d been told that type of thing was disconcerting for humans. This close, he’d be able to feel the bend in space and would likely think he was dying. Introducing more panic to the situation was not worth it.

Patton found a knot and began working at it with his fingers. The human was shaking now like it was cold. Was it cold? He concentrated for a moment. No, it wasn’t. He hadn’t really thought that was the reason anyway.

“What’s your name?” Patton asked as gently as possible, hoping to distract as he worked at the ropes. He got a puff of suspicious against his face for his efforts. Patton’s nose twitched.

“Virgil,” he answered quietly after a moment.

“No last name?” Patton asked and got a bit stronger of a suspicious puff in his face. He almost sneezed. “Fine. Just Virgil it is,” he said. “What’s your favorite color Virgil?”

Head shake. Honestly, he must have a pretty active imagination if he could think up a way Patton could use that information to hurt him.

“I think my favorite color is blue,” he said. “Like the sky when it’s sunny out. That’s why I wear this shirt.” He continued to blather softly as his fingers worked to undo the knots. He’d been tussled up good and tight. Patton would be surprised if he had circulation in his feet. “There all done,” he said, tossing the rope to the side. Virgil had turned his face back to him and was peaking at him from beneath his hair. Patton shot him a gentle smile. “Can you move your legs for me a bit?” He shifted a bit and sucked in a pained breath. “Here, let me help,” Patton said. “I’m going to touch, okay?” he nodded, and Patton reached out to rub at where the ropes had been. He winced and bit his lip while Patton did his best to help him get circulation back. “Better?” he asked.

“Yeah,” he replied.

“Good, I’m glad.” He sat back so he wasn’t quite in the human’s bubble anymore. “I’m going to go clean up from breakfast,” he said, grabbing the plate and standing up. He frowned when he passed the bed and tapped it so it shuddered into something more comfortable. “Why don’t you try to get some rest.”


	3. Chapter 3

Virgil did not get some rest. His eyes drifted to the bed across the room. No, no, absolutely not, he was not going to touch that. He’d have to drag Virgil there if he wanted that.

He could hear him… it (don’t get sucked in, don’t get sucked in) in the kitchen: the sound of dishes clanking and soft humming, sounding all together human, but it wasn’t, was it? The kitchen’s very existence was testament to that. Although that begged the question, why on Earth was it washing dishes the normal way?

Even more evidence to give credit to the fact that this was all some sort of set up.

Nice words and gentle fingers meant absolutely nothing. They’d harden and crack like clay in an oven soon enough.

He wondered how long he could toe the line between acting distrustful enough that it thought it still needed to play nice to gain his trust, but complacent enough that it thought it still had a chance. Then again, what was the point? Eventually he’d piss it off or bore it enough and it wasn’t like there was any escape. The horrible voice that had brought Virgil more pain than it was worth whispered that he’d though the same thing back then.

Yeah and a fat lot of good that had done him. Now he’s here.

But it had done some good. Almost a decade between escape from him and now. A decade to just… exist.

Goddammit, why couldn’t the voice just shut up and let him die for once in his life. This was different. He’d been a liar and a manipulator, but his illusions had been just that: illusions. Confusing, terrifying, and painful illusions, but ones who’s chains you could break if you played your cards right because they weren’t real. These illusions left the taste of bacon on his tongue and his stomach full even after the plate had been taken away. They may not be painful yet, but they were _real_ and that was a lot more terrifying.

“I see you’re still not in bed,” Patton said entering the room.

“Not tired.”

“Uh huh…”

Virgil clenched his jaw.

It sighed. “Okay.” It dithered on the spot, a good impression of awkwardness for a being that could doubtlessly make Virgil eat his own hand with a well-focused thought. “Do you want to play a game?”

Virgil went tense all over at that phrase, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt.

“… a card game,” it clarified, but Virgil refused to relax. “Since you’re not tired? I have a deck here,” he pulled one out of his pocket. “We could play Crazy Eights. Unless you want to sleep?”

“…Cards.”

“Alright,” it moved until it was in front of Virgil and sat down. Virgil didn’t move as it shuffled the cards a couple of times. “Do you know how to play?” it asked.

“No.”

The deck was split into three piles, two much smaller than the other. Patton handed him one of the smaller piles and put the other in the middle of them before flipping over a card. “We take turns,” he explained. “You have to try to get rid of your entire pile by putting cards down, but you can only put it down if it’s the same suit or number of the one that just got put down. If you don’t have any you can put down you draw from that pile,” he pointed, “until you get one that works. Get it.”

“Yeah sure.”

“Okay, I’ll go first.”

He tried to make conversation, but Virgil didn’t acquiesce more than a few grunts and mumbled monosyllable responses. He continued to chatter though. He seemed to be an unending source of chatter. He’d been talking about birds a while ago and Virgil thought he was on capitalization rules for titles or maybe he was just listing all the capitals in the world and different titles for royalty? Virgil was too busy watching his hands fiddle and flit around as he chose cards from his hand and deposited them on the pile. They looked like the hands of someone who worked outside, with sun spots on the back and callouses on his fingers, but that wasn’t true. He-It had made those hands, crafted them into being. Their appearance was calculated, and Virgil wondered what the intention of them was. They reminded Virgil of the old man who used to fish in the river when Virgil had been just a child. He’d shared his lunch with Virgil a couple of times, tore a sandwich in half with slightly dirty fingers. He’d liked that man, but he’d died the next winter.

They were hands that looked like they could be trusted, but they only could be if someone earned them. It didn’t count if they wore them to make people trust them; it just meant there wasn’t much to trust.

That sparked something in Virgil, and he lifted his head to look at it for the first time during the game.

“What did you mean by saying you can read souls?” he asked, interrupting whatever it’d been talking about.

Patton blinked as though startled and thought for a moment, slowly setting a card down on the pile. “It’s difficult to explain. I look at you and I can see more than your body. I can read general intentions, emotions, core morals. Violence done stains people with different colors depending on why it was performed and how far they went in different places depending on how they felt about it. Like you have a bit of yellow where your shoulder meets your neck. You hit someone enough to hurt but not do much damage. It was out of fear, but they didn’t deserve it and you feel bad about it, but don’t regret it. There’s green on your fingertips from when you tried to kill someone out of self defense and red under your eye from where you shoved someone down and didn’t look back. You’re mostly dark purple though, almost black, but not quite. That’s not stains though, that’s you. Stubborn, insightful, empathetic. You want to live but you don’t know why. You want to help but you don’t know how.”

“You can see the violence I’ve done,” Virgil said. “So, you know I didn’t stab that guard?”

“Well, I haven’t gone routing through your mind, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but I don’t see anything that looks like it. I don’t think I would’ve been called on if you had.”

Virgil suppressed a shudder at the idea that it could go routing through his mind. It knew by a glance so much about him already. Sure, he hadn’t actually stabbed the guard, but Virgil knew enough about himself to know his soul was rotted out. If it could really read souls (and for that, it had no reason to lie) there was no way it would just let Virgil be. “Because you’re the fluffy, sunshine and rainbows version of your species sent to comfort the innocent lambs,” he said, trying not to scowl.

Patton’s nose twitched before his lips pursed. “I’m really not trying to trick you.”

“Get out of my head!”

“You’re projecting!” He-it sighed. “My species give people what they deserve, and you really don’t deserve to be hurt.” Yeah, well where had that viewpoint been all his life?

“Can I leave, then?” Virgil asked meeting its eyes steadily and playing with one of the cards in his hand. “If I’m innocent and you know it, can’t I just not be here anymore.”

He winced “I am, unfortunately, not able to let you out of the dungeon myself kiddo,” Patton said, “but they’ll come around in a few days to check and they’ll let you out then.” Virgil mulled that over in his head. He looked genuine enough, but he also looked human, which _it_ was decidedly not. It’d made a kitchen out of thin air and changed the bed with a tap. And it couldn’t let Virgil out of this cell?

Yeah, no, Virgil was calling bullshit.

Virgil knew games. He’d lost a lot of them and he was going to lose this one too, but he wasn’t a fool enough to believe the lie. He’d believed far too many lies.

“What’s a few days?” Virgil asked, face carefully blank. “Less than a week?”

“Oh definitely,” Patton answered. Well, at least Virgil had a timetable now. The ruse couldn’t last past that. Was he really so confident that Virgil would break that quickly that he didn’t even hedge the answer?

“Cool.” He placed down another card on top of the pile, and Patton watched him for a moment before turning back to study his cards with his bottom lip between his teeth.

This was… this was weird. He was sitting across from some crazy powerful thing that could see all his sins like Virgil could see the freckles on his skin. It could snap at any moment and hurt Virgil in unimaginable ways, and they were just… playing cards. Virgil bit his lip to restrain hysterical laughter from bubbling out of his mouth.

Patton’s head snapped up like someone had whistled even though no sound had left Virgil’s lips. “You okay over there, kiddo?”

The laughter escaped, a sharp guffaw and then a couple of choked up giggles before they cut off abruptly because Virgil couldn’t breathe suddenly. 

Patton’s cards were discarded, face side up, Virgil noted; he could cheat if he wanted. Well, he would have been able to if his vision wasn’t blurring out at least. “Breathe Virgil, you’ve got to breathe.”

He was _trying._

“Here, sorry, I’m going to touch.” Virgil barely registered his hand being taken and set against Patton’s chest. “Try to breath with me,” he requested. Virgil wasn’t sure how he was supposed to breathe with him when he couldn’t breathe but found himself somehow managing to force a chocked half exhale a moment latter. With space in his lungs now, he pulled in a bit of oxygen. “And out,” he heard, so he blew out and then sucked in a bit more air. He ended up more panting than taking real breaths but at least it was air going into his lungs. With a bit of clarity that came from that, he was able to start to slow down until he was more or less able to match the pace of the chest under his. Then he cried.

He was straight back to gasping, this time through sobs as he cried and cried and cried until he felt positively numb. He noted dispassionately that Patton’s arms had come around him, half in a hug and half to keep him upright. That was probably not good, but he couldn’t seem to care.

“Okay, time for bed now I think,” Patton said, a hitch to his tone.

Yeah, sure, whatever. What did it even matter?

When he didn’t respond but to stare blankly, Patton moved to stand and scooped him up. A spark of panic managed to cut through the dark numbness because he’d basically just lifted Virgil like he was a bag full of tissue paper. He placed him gently on the bed. “Want to take off your shoes?” he asked. Virgil tilted his head to look at him. “Okay.” He pulled the blanket up over him, shoes and all and tucked him in with gentle fingers before retreating. Virgil stared at the ceiling for a few minutes before tilting onto his side to look at the creature he was stuck here with. He had a chair now and was sitting in it. Virgil stared at him through the dark. He would not be going to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the new tag! Virgil basically said fuck you to both Patton and me during this chapter…

The human stared at him blankly from the bed, doing nothing but blinking and breathing. It was edging on the side of eerie (which meant something when Patton was the one thinking it). More than that, the behavior was rather concerning. It was not something Patton had ever seen a human do, and Patton had seen many humans do many things.

He tentatively reached out (he had only promised to disengage for a little while after all) and was met with calm. Yet, it was not a content type of calm. It was something else.

It was like drowning in still water. The water was calm, but there was a weight on his ankle and the shore was far away. His head was submerged, and the world was muted. The water gently slipped back and forth across his skin.

Patton had to remind himself for a moment that he wouldn’t have to breathe even if he was physically underwater.

The human kept staring at Patton. He never turned his head. He never moved. A crushing weight burned at his lungs.

It lasted for a very long time and Patton felt trapped there with him.

He watched. He waited. He continued to drown gently.

Then it ended.

In a snap, he was back. The water receded and the human was back to what he’d been like before. Unfortunately, that was still a baseline of at least 50% fear, but it was better than the murky depths of before.

Patton took a slow breath. He didn’t quite know what had happened. They’d been playing cards just fine. He’d even started talking back to Patton, though he was clearly still cautious. He’d been fine as far as Patton could tell without digging when suddenly, it felt like a knife jammed through his jugular and the human had broken in two.

Patton had worried he wouldn’t come back around, but he seemed alert now if a bit fatigued.

He was… still just staring at Patton though.

“Go to sleep,” Patton suggested.

He said nothing, but the petulant _won’t_ floated through the air.

“You’re exhausted,” Patton sighed.

“Get out of my head,” Virgil snapped back, finally turning his head to look at the ceiling.

“I don’t need to be in your head to tell that you’re exhausted.”

He said nothing.

“Sleep,” Patton insisted.

_No._ It was pitched forward directly at Patton, barbed and focused, and Patton was honestly a bit impressed when it sunk into his skin; he was pretty sure that was at least somewhat intentional. He grimaced in displeasure at the sting it brought.

“Stop it.”

He turned his head back toward Patton and hissed.

Patton stood up and purposefully walked over to the bed.

The action was met with a vindictive kind of fear from the human. A pleasure that shredded at the insides. Patton smacked him in the face with a pillow. “Stop it.”

He blinked up at Patton owlishly, still tensed for pain, and Patton’s heart melted into a puddle.

He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. “What would help you calm down?” he asked. He reached out a hand and found his human’s knee. There was an intake of breath, but the touch didn’t seem to send him spiraling. In fact, after a moment where he seemed to contemplate the touch, there was a mostly hidden surge of the most positive emotion Patton had felt from him since they’d met. This human was a strange one. He rubbed a soft circle with his thumb. “Come on,” he requested. “Tell me how I can make you trust me enough to sleep.”

He bit his lip and thought for a moment. “Tell me more about what you are,” Virgil requested.

Patton skimmed his fingers across his calf with barely there pressure. “What do you want to know?”

“Are you trapped here?” he asked.

“Yes and no,” he replied. “This form is trapped here. I can’t open the doors any more than you can. The most I can do is manipulate and even that is difficult if it’s not something I worked to predesign the shape of like the kitchen or my form itself. Yet, I’m not truly trapped here. It’s a place where I am concentrated at the moment, but not a place I have to be.”

“Concentrated,” he repeated.

“I’m not usually like this,” Patton said, gesturing at his body. “Time and place don’t normally hold me. I sort of,” he paused. “Hmm. I float, I guess would be an accurate enough descriptor, between the walls of different planes of existence.”

“Okay. So, you’re a formless all powerful being from another dimension,” he said, and there was a kind of rusty giddiness about it that made Patton shift uncomfortably.

“I’m not all powerful,” Patton corrected. “Most of what I can do is limited to things outside of the physical realm. Creating this form is probably the extend of it. I can’t really create much, and I can’t destroy things. I can bend and rearrange them some, but it isn’t much.”

“There was a wall there,” Virgil said, pointing at the kitchen.

“The wall’s still there,” Patton said. “It’s just a kitchen now.” Patton felt tingling behind his ears as the human stared at him blankly. “Like I said,” he tried to clarify, “the kitchen was already well designed in my head. I simply stretched the wall into it.”

He blinked slowly at Patton. “Yeah alright,” he said and finally, _finally_ laid back against the bed. His crushing exhaustion was let loose to crash over the room and lick at Patton’s toes like waves on a beach. “I’m just… going to go to sleep now.” He squirmed a bit under the sheets and his shoes fell out onto the floor.

Patton nodded and figured he’d probably be more comfortable without Patton so close, so he retreated back to the chair. He let himself drift while the human slept. Fear was not an unusual reaction for people when they met him (at least for the adults, children tended to just be confused more often than not). This fear, however, had a bitter sharpness to it that Patton found unusual and it had not faded under Patton’s compassion. It shifted and morphed, but it hadn’t calmed. Patton wondered why, but more, he wondered what he could do about it.

Less than an hour into Virgil’s rest, Patton felt tendrils of fear slithering up his arms, slowed with sleep and sticky against his skin. He got to his feet and moved over to the bed to carefully place his hand on top of his human’s head. He skimmed his fingers across his forehead in hopes it would stop whatever was going on in his sleep. The tendrils did hesitate at the touch for a few long moments before they slowly started creeping again. _Calm,_ Patton thought and pushed gently.

He was shocked when, instead of relaxing at the gentle mental command, Virgil shot straight up into a sitting position and scrambled away from him. They stared at each other for a moment.

“You were having a nightmare,” Patton explained.

“Yeah.”

“Do you… want to go back to sleep?”

“ _No._ ”

Patton sighed. “Alright. What would you like to do instead?”

“Leave.”

“I can’t do that unfortunately.” Patton thought his teeth might be ripped out of his skull.

“Sure.” He pushed himself to his feet and Patton took a seat on the bed to watch as he started to pace back and forth along the length of the cell. He’d be worried about such behavior except something about the movement seemed to calm the jitteriness in his legs. He walked back and forth in the little space for a few minutes.

“You can go into the kitchen if you’d like to have more room,” Patton said. Virgil paused at the doorway and looked into the other room with narrowed eyes. Goodness. “It’s just a room.”

“Not one that existed before yesterday.”

“Well that’s true of all rooms at some point.” He glared at Patton, but despite that, Patton could feel a bit of popping at the sides of his lips: amusement.

He took a careful step into the room and disappeared out of sight. There were some clanks in the room and the sound of running water. Patton titled his head, listening to the sounds without moving from the bed.

He walked back into the room after some time carrying two mugs. “Do you even drink things?” he asked.

Patton raised an eyebrow. “I do.” The human offered him a mug full of tea and he took it. He was such a weird human. He took a seat in the chair Patton had been using earlier, tucking one leg underneath himself and watching Patton with dark, intense eyes. “Thank you,” Patton said belatedly.

He made a sound somewhere between a humph and a scoff. _Then why did you make one for me you silly human?_ Virgil drank his tea while staring over Patton’s shoulder. Patton drank his own tea and observed him. It was interesting. Every time Patton felt the panic starting to swell, he took a small sip of tea and the feeling abated a bit. Eventually, he ran out of tea.

“I’m making food,” Virgil said, standing up abruptly the next time the panic started to swirl.

Patton nodded. He followed him into the kitchen this time to observe him. The human poked around, looking in different cabinets and a few drawers, taking things he wanted every so often. He paused for a moment and looked around.

“What do you need?” Patton asked.

He glanced over. “Salt.” Patton nodded and walked to where he kept the salt before offering it to him.

“Thanks.”

“Of course. What are you making?”

“Just oatmeal,” he responded.

Patton smiled. “Oatmeal is good,” he said. “Would you like more tea? I can make some while you work on that.” He nodded with a quick little jerk of his head.

Patton retrieved the kettle to fill it with water and set it to boil. Then, he went about preparing some fresh tea bags. Virgil didn’t flinch away as much as Patton flitted around him; he was too focused on cooking.

This was good, Patton thought. The fear wasn’t gone, but he seemed to know how to manage it. Activities and movements seemed to keep him calm. Patton could use that information to help him.

At least. It was good until he accidently touched the burner on the stove, sending the pan of oatmeal flying when he jerked back in surprise.

It wasn’t a bad burn, Patton could tell, but it did cause Virgil to yelp and Patton to hiss in surprise as he felt the phantom pain on his own hand.

“Oh, are you alright?” Patton fussed. He walked over to him and took his wrist with gentle fingers to look at the burn.

Virgil yanked himself away with a hiss and sudden anger roared in his ears. “Stop it! What are you even doing?!”

“I’m just making sure you’re not badly hurt,” Patton tried to sooth.

“No! Fuck you! Why would you even care?!”

“I don’t want you to be in pain,” Patton insisted and almost chocked on the disbelief burning like acid on his tongue. Virgil’s eyes scanned Patton up and down. Patton felt something spread out from his chest all the way to his fingers and toes: something dark, aching, and rotted. What’s worse was it was colored with _intention._ “Whatever you’re thinking. Don’t,” Patton commanded firmly.

He looked up, met Patton’s eyes head on, and reached over to place his hand firmly on the burner.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: *looks at Virgil from the end of the last chapter.
> 
> Me: He’s fine. He even gets to take a nap today! :)
> 
> Also I went wild with my writing choices there for a minute. Namely with the perspective of the narration and a bit with the tenses. So who even knows if this is legible? Certainly not me.

It didn’t hurt too much, the burning. It perhaps would have once, but pain was, after all, relative. It was no worse than when they’d burned the brand into his shoulder over a decade ago and not even close to the things that came after. It also didn’t come with the emotional and mental hurt that colored his memories of that event and which still haunted his nightmares consistently to this day. Quite the opposite, there was a vindictive pleasure to the sting. Like an old horse that got one last good kick in on the way to the glue factory.

He was forcibly yanked back within a moment, the hold on his shoulders harsher than any touch he’d gotten from Patton so far. Yet, it was still just holding. There was no pain, just pressure. Virgil turned on him spitting and fighting anyway.

“Stop,” Patton ordered.

“Just hurt me,” Virgil demanded, trying to bite and having his face pushed away with firm fingers. “I know you’re going to, so just do it!”

“Stop it,” Patton snapped.

“Just do it!” he yelled. He shoved with all of his strength and got absolutely nowhere. “I don’t want to play anymore.”

“Calm down,” he said firmly, but Virgil did not. “Calm…” his fingers came to grip at Virgil’s temples and Virgil could feel it like ice sliding down his throat. He’d known, of course, whatever Patton was, it was telepathic. It slid into his head without difficulty and Virgil was overwhelmed by how much _more_ it was then Virgil.

Fight or flight kicked in. There wasn’t any flight. He’d be trapped in the prison even if he wasn’t trapped in his own body, in his own mind. But how on Earth was he supposed to fight that? It loomed like a giant black cloud at the edge of his consciousness and he wasn’t sure if the visual was real or just how his mind was trying to process it.

He panicked, thrashing, though his body did not move and lashed out instinctually trying to hurt or scare or just find a _grip_ on something.

It rolled and shifted in response, and after a few moments, it moved closer to him somehow even if it was already inside his head.

_No._ Virgil sort of shoved with his mind, trying to do something, but it was like shoving at a brick wall.

Pain, he thought, remembering how it had flinched when Virgil had burnt his hand both times. He could not physically do something like that with how he felt like the edges of his body were fading into nothing, but Virgil did have memories. He had so many memories and vivid ones at that.

He shoved.

Memories of blood in his mouth and tugging on his hair. A slap across his face and pounding in his head. He lobbed those memories at it like he might throw rock at a wolf in hopes it would decide he was too much effort.

They made it hesitate and squirm for a moment before it began to inch forward again. So, Virgil threw more at it. It was like throwing pebbles into a river. It made a ripple, but it could never change its course. Despite that, he threw everything at it: every pain and fear and desperation.

You bang at the window even though you know what’s waiting on the other side is probably worse, but it’s so dark and you’re so scared that you’re going to risk it. No one comes. You still get punished for waking them up in the morning.

You get tripped by someone whose face you can barely remember anymore and fall in the mud. The sting in your palms and knees is nothing compared to the fear of what punishment you’re going to get for muddying your cloths.

Your stomach drops when you realize what is happening. You knew your parents hated you; they’d told you that for years, but you’d thought you’d just age into an adult in four years and leave. You think you feel worse about your lack of surprise than about the realization that they’re selling you.

You are taken in by soft words that calmed you at the time, but the memory of them stings and aches like the bruises that would come. Lies.

You scream when they press the hot metal into your skin to burn the brand into your arm and you’d face much worse pain in the years to come, but there is something about that feeling that sticks with you even now. It was the worst pain you’d ever felt at the time. You can’t even look at your own shoulder without feeling sick to your stomach in remembered agony.

You try not to make mistakes, but you know in the end it’s not going to matter. Everything already hurts. They say you do something wrong even when you do everything right. You’re pretty sure it’s just a game.

You know it isn’t real. It isn’t real. It isn’t real. You can tell the difference between real and not by now. There are cracks in the illusions. It’s still terrifying though and it still hurts. It is not real, but you can still feel the slimy creature slither up your body; you can still feel it dig its fangs into your neck; you can still feel the effects of the poison killing you. (That’s the biggest indicator that this is not real; he’s not going to let you die so easily or so soon.) It’s almost worse, knowing it’s not real, because you know you could stop it if you could just focus, if you weren’t so weak.

You are hungry and thirsty and cold, but you can’t start a fire because they’ll find you and you didn’t know then how bad it would be, but you do now, because they did find you that night even without the fire.

You fight and you fight and you fight, but he just laughs when he finally manages to rip your fingers off his neck. He says he’s glad you still have fight in you because it makes it a lot more fun.

You’re better now at forcing the illusions away, but he’s realized that by now. He adds real parts to confuse you more and he’s getting better at the balance. You think the hand squeezing around your neck is real, but you think the biting at your ankle is not. It’s hard to tell though when you’re already so dizzy.

Your wrists bleed but you can’t feel it at this point. They’ve been above you so long. It doesn’t matter. There are different pains to worry about anyway.

You don’t know how long you have been here, but it feels like days, weeks, years. (You later learn it was 9 days. You are pretty sure his goal was to go until it killed you.) He has gotten too good at his illusions, using you as practice. You can’t tell the difference between real and not real. It blends and twists and every time you think you find an edge of the illusion, it disintegrates in your hand. You want out. You need out. You are so confused, and you need to figure out how to sort reality out, but nothing you’ve done works. There is something slimy near your ankle and sliding up and you can’t take it. You think you need to know something is real. You dig your own fingernails into the opposite arm above the wrist until you bleed. You know that feeling is real and like blinking after having your eyes held open for too long, you can suddenly see the gap between reality and illusion. You shove everything at the weak point between truth and lies and tug and tug until you shred the illusion into mangled pieces. Funnily enough, his pet gets punished more for that since, apparently, he was under strict orders not to let you bleed.

You don’t even know what compels you to move. Everything hurts so bad, but he is distracted and cocky and it’s just him, not the guards or his prized pet, and he probably doesn’t think you’ll be able to move. You shouldn’t be able to move. Every movement feels like you’re dragging your wounds over hot coals and you just want to stop, stop, stop. You want to stop. You want to stop moving. You want to stop breathing. And yet. Yet. You move without even deciding to do so. And then you run.

And you were just trying to help. You were trying to help, but it didn’t matter, it never mattered. They still took one look at you and threw you here and now you are going to be tortured for the rest of your life and you have little hope that life is going to be short.

Virgil emptied himself of all of the hurt, trying, trying to put forth some defense, but it was still there. It still moved closer even with the barrage, and it was going to rip him to shreds. So, in a last spiteful act, he pushed forward every horrible thing he’d imagined would happen to him since he landed in this cell, hoping to impact even a fraction of the pain he’d be getting back in kind soon.

Food that turns to maggots in your mouth. Waking from sleep tied or blind or with your mouth sewn shut. All of the things that can be done to a prisoner on a bed.

And he hoped it hurt. He hoped it hurt, because it was going to hurt him. It was going to hurt. _Please, please don’t hurt me._

And then it was there. It did not touch him at first. It swarmed him, curling and wrapping itself until it was surrounding everything that was Virgil. Then it pushed, much like Virgil had, but a lot less violently and only things that were soft and warm. Virgil tried to resist for a moment, but he was so tired, and he’d just poured so much of himself out. He gave in.

It seemed to sense his concession because it pressed in a little tighter. Thoughts and feelings that weren’t his own flitted around Virgil. They were weird thoughts, a bit too big and complicated to grasp. Memories: large, strange and complex. It was like reading a paragraph in a language you only half knew. He could pick out pieces and thought he understood the general message, but there were things he just simply didn’t understand or have context for.

They were nice though; they were nice thoughts. They were kind and soothing and colored by a bit of sadness. They nudged at Virgil and he wasn’t sure what they wanted from him. There was a thing like humming but not at all like that and it nudged a bit more insistently, pushing Virgil down with gentle pressure. Virgil didn’t put up any resistance this time and let himself sink.

A pressure he hadn’t been quite conscious of keeping released like he’d just relaxed a white knuckled grip on something, and he just let himself kind of curl up under the soft pressure above him. He calmed.

After a brief moment, there was a shifting and the pressure eased up slowly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he heard, and those were words and ones not even in his head. He felt like he had to pour himself back into his own skin. Once he did, he realized he’d somehow ended up on his back. “How do you feel?” Patton asked him, his voice barely above a whisper. Virgil blinked at him slowly.

“Tired,” he finally responded and when he attempted to move, it felt like he was moving though syrup. “Kinda numb?”

There were hands above him, flitting around, but not touching. Virgil followed them with his eyes. “Does your head hurt?” he asked.

Virgil thought. He thinks it should for some reason that he can’t quite formulate, but it doesn’t. It just feels really slow. “No.”

“I’m sorry,” Patton said. “I wasn’t going to… You weren’t supposed to fight like that. I didn’t want to go that deep.”

Virgil considered this. “It was. Weird.”

“I…” his hands fluttered a bit more above him, but he finally made the decision to stroke some of the hair back from Virgil’s forehead. “I bet it was.”

Virgil’s eyebrows furrowed. “What happened?” he asked.

“I was just going to give you a push to calm you. Most people don’t even notice or recognize what it is, but you fought and kinda sunk your teeth into me. Yanking back could’ve hurt so I had to go a bit far into your thoughts to get you to disengage. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay. I think?” Virgil said and let his mind turn over a couple more times. “I’m real tired. I’d like to go to bed again now.”

“Okay,” Patton responded. “Yeah. I’ll get you to bed kiddo.” He fell asleep in Patton’s arms before they made it out of the kitchen.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason that this had to go on hiatus for a while was the following.
> 
> Me: Virgil would you like to discuss your emotions?
> 
> Virgil: No.
> 
> Patton: I do.
> 
> Me: I know, Patton.
> 
> Patton: I’m sad.
> 
> Me: I know, Patton

Patton set Virgil down on the bed as carefully as possible and then slowly sunk down onto the floor next to it. “Okay,” he breathed. “Ouch.”

He rubbed at his arms a bit, trying to scrub the ache that had settled into his bones away. His form was not a true one and any physical injury it might obtain would have no true impact on Patton, but it was an extension of Patton’s consciousness and as such, it throbbed with the rest of him after that fight.

Virgil had gone all but feral after Patton had pulled him away from burning his own hand on the stove (and Patton was still not sure how to digest the cold bitterness that had crept through him when Virgil had made that decision). His feelings had clawed viciously at Patton’s back while Patton did his best to stop him from hurting himself, and he’d shown no signs of calming. So, Patton had tried to calm him in the most effective way he knew how to.

He had not been expecting what had happened next. He hadn’t even considered the possibility of a fight. Humans didn’t fight Patton. They accepted his soft little pushes often without even noticing Patton was there. Even if he had to go deep enough for them to register something foreign, they had no thought to resist or ability to do so. At most, some had mental walls that had been crafted for defense over the years that Patton could easily maneuver around. They never went on the offence. They didn’t fight. Not Patton.

Virgil was different, and he was as impressive as he was tragic.

He’d panicked when he’d registered Patton’s existence in his head and instinctually grabbed at him and refused to let go, like a cat too panicked to retract its claws when they were stuck in the drapes. The little darts of pain he’d flung had been well focused and intense. If Patton was less practiced at being gentle or more inclined to panic, Virgil likely would have gotten what he’d wanted: Patton out. But the way he’d have done it would have likely left them both damaged, Virgil far more than Patton. It could even have breached into physical damage.

The flashes of memories and thoughts he’d lobbed at Patton were piecemeal blazes of hurt but he could puzzle enough together to get the picture. Virgil had at some point been at the hands of a skilled illusionist mage and a cruel one at that. From what Patton had seen, it was amazing that he’d survived it not only with an intact brain, but with one that knew how to recognize and resist mental manipulation. Not that damage had not been wrought.

It was no wonder he feared Patton so intensely. The very thing Patton was, was Virgil’s worst nightmare come to life. Because the fact of the matter was, Patton could rip him apart at the seams if he wanted to. He could have accidently done so a few moments ago if he’d been a bit less careful, let alone if he’d actually tried to do it on purpose. And Virgil knew it. He knew in a deeper way than most humans were capable of. It’s like he could see that Patton was something more beyond the skin he wore, a fact most humans struggled with even when it was explained to them in detail. Virgil was frightened. And, in a way, he was right to be.

So, where did they go from here?

Well. That would have to wait until he woke. Patton pulled himself to his feet, shaking off the lingering aches and returned to the kitchen. He cleaned up the spilled oatmeal and after a moment of thought, decided to start cooking another batch. He was careful to stir it frequently (though it would never burn in this pan if he did not want it to). It was nice to indulge in the mechanical motions and just think.

Virgil was not a normal case for Patton. He was used to children who could be gently coddled or the wrongly accused that could be calmed with a few words of assurance. Virgil was something else entirely. His fear ran deeper than the moment, and it was supported by experience and reinforced by pain. It was usually so easy for Patton to gain the trust of his charges but gaining trust from Virgil would take more than Patton’s words.

Patton wished he could let Virgil out of the prison himself. That would likely be kinder than this and being allowed to leave would finally let him truly know Patton never meant him any harm. However, to do that he would have to dissipate his form, reform in another crack along reality, and make it back here through physical means. That would likely take longer than simply waiting for the next guard check and would leave Virgil without a source of food or anything else in the interim since there wasn’t really a need for the guards to feed the prisoners. So, that was not a viable solution.

When the oatmeal was finished, he paused the air around it to keep it in its current state indefinitely and walked back into the other room to watch over Virgil as he slept.

It was hours later when Virgil started to squirm a bit, his nose twitching. Patton watched him stirring before his eyes finally opened. He squinted at the roof above him in confusion. Then, he tilted his head to look at Patton. Patton sat waiting for him to do something else for a long moment, but he didn’t; he just stared at Patton looking a bit dazed.

“Hey there,” Patton said softly.

Virgil blinked at him a few times slowly before his eyes cleared a bit. Those eyes narrowed. “Dude what the actual fuck?” Patton drew back in surprise. “What the hell was that? Did you read my mind?”

“Not exactly. I didn’t try to at least, but you did, well, force a few things towards me.”

He thought about this, squinting at thin air as though trying to remember something. It seemed Patton being in his head may have caused a few things to get jostled, but he seemed mostly okay, and Patton imagined the confusion would lift in a few moments. “Sorry about that,” he finally said.

That was surprising. Patton hadn’t expected that. “You don’t need to be sorry.”

“Did that hurt you?” he asked.

“It did,” Patton admitted. “A little bit, but not too much.”

“I was trying to hurt you.”

Patton grimaced. “I did get that impression.”

“Are you angry about that?”

Patton sighed. “No, I’m not. You were scared. It’s mostly my fault for pushing especially after you’d already made it clear you didn’t like me being in your head. I should have figured out a different way to calm you down.” Patton expected to feel the push and pull of fear, anger, or disbelief rolling off him, but it surprisingly didn’t come. He just stared at Patton curiously and stroked the edges of his sheets with his fingertips. “I’m going to get you some food, okay? You haven’t eaten since last night.”

“Okay,” Virgil replied.

Patton got up and grabbed a bowl of oatmeal from the kitchen.

“Thanks,” Virgil said when he took it. He paused and squinted up at Patton, and there was that puff of suspicion across his face that Patton was getting so accustom to. “This isn’t floor oatmeal, is it?”

Patton spat out a surprised laugh. “No, it isn’t floor oatmeal. I remade it.”

He still glared at the oatmeal as though expecting it to come to life. Patton felt a slight pang in his chest as one of the thoughts Virgil had flung at him came to mind, of food handed to him being nothing but a cruel trick. Patton glanced away but heard as he took a bite. A positive feeling stirred in Patton’s chest to his surprise, warm and sort of sticky like syrup.

Patton turned his eyes back to him. “Like it?” he asked curiously.

“Yeah. It’s really good.”

There was a surprising lack of fear in the air. That wasn’t to say it was gone, but it was less than it had been before, not counting that scary time he’d gone all muted and numb. “You’re less scared of me now?” Patton asked.

There was a tickle of trepidation running down his throat, but he didn’t quite spiral into a full panic. “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know.”

“I went inside your head,” Patton reminded with an eyebrow raise.

“Yeah, and I’m still alive to talk about it, aren’t I?”

Patton squinted at him. “You’re weird.”

“You’re weird,” he grumbled back, petulantly taking another bite of his oatmeal.

Patton chuckled. “You’re adorable.” Warmth tingled at the apples of Patton’s cheeks and started to creep out.

“Don’t,” he hissed, but there was no true anger to it as he ducked his chin to hide his blush. The embarrassment seemed to burn away a bit of the fear still sticking to his skin. Huh.

“Very adorable,” Patton corrected and got back a confused indignant sound. Patton laughed at him again. Hmmm. This he could work with.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I write an AU where Patton doesn’t cook far too many things for the people he cares about to eat? As of yet, no.

Virgil continued to eat his oatmeal as Patton watched. Unlike before, he didn’t seem inclined to ramble at Virgil when Virgil didn’t speak.

He felt something flicker against his ear not for the first time since he woke, and he twitched. His chewing slowed as a sensation persisted. That wasn’t… that wasn’t a physical feeling was it? It was Patton, Virgil realized, doing something and clearly assuming Virgil wouldn’t notice whatever it was. The realization still made him bristle a bit on instinct, but the feeling was soft and seemed to be focused on checking on him. He was making sure he hadn’t accidently done any damage, Virgil thought (though fuck if Virgil knew how on Earth he was able to discern that intention). Knowing what that sensation was made him want to freeze like a startled prey animal, but honestly, seeing exactly what Patton was and feeling what he could do and having somehow come out on the other side intact, allowed him to take a breath. It was a gentle touch anyway. Patton had been nothing but gentle. Virgil still didn’t know…. He didn’t know if this was real, but he _felt_ like it might be. There had been an exchange of sorts at some point during all of that. He thought he got a taste of Patton’s emotions and they were a lot, but they seemed to be genuine.

Eventually, Patton must have been satisfied because the sensation stopped. Then, there was just silence. It quickly started to get awkward having Patton just sit there and watch him chew; Virgil shifted uncomfortably. “Do you eat?” he asked to break the silence.

“Sometimes,” Patton answered. “Not things like oatmeal usually though.”

“Well then what do you eat?”

A smile flickered at the edges of his mouth. “Cookies mostly.”

Virgil considered that. “I guess if you can produce ingredients out of thin air and can eat anything you want without consequence, you can do whatever you want.”

Patton hummed in agreement. “I like cooking them too,” he divulged. “I should make you some. What are your favorite types?”

“Erm… I don’t know. I haven’t had many types.”

“Oh?” he said with a head tilt. “What types have you had?”

“I had those cinnamoy ones with the weird name I always forget a couple of times. They were okay. Also, I tried to make chocolate chip, but they were pretty burnt, and I don’t think I put enough sugar in them.”

“Well that’s not nearly enough cookies to have had in your life,” Patton said with a frown that edged on a pout.

“I mean, no one really made cookies for me when I was young, and for a lot of years I didn’t have easy access to the materials. I’ve tried a few times since I have my own kitchen and some cash to spare, but I don’t know how to make them, and the results weren’t what they probably were supposed to be.”

“Well, I know how to make cookies, and we have all of the ingredients here. Would you like me to show you? That way you can make them once you’re out of here.”

Am I going to get out of here? Virgil wondered. The answer had been a clear no from the moment he was thrown in this cell, but if it was possible Patton was what he said he was, was it possible that he’d be able to go home? He missed home. “Sure,” Virgil hedged in answer to Patton’s question. “If you want.”

“Of course!” he enthused, popping to his feet.

“Now?” Virgil asked.

“Do you have any other plans for today?” he asked, amusement coloring his tone.

“I mean… fair enough.” Patton happy walked to the kitchen and Virgil got up to follow him at a more sedate pace.

“Alright,” Patton said, clapping his hands together when Virgil walked into the kitchen. “We’ll start with chocolate chip cookies, good ones with enough sugar and nice and soft. Then we’ll do sugar cookies. Ooo, we can cut them into cute shapes and make homemade frosting. Then we can make peanut butter cookies and thumbprints! You said you like snickerdoodles, right? We’ll make some of those too.”

“That…” Virgil said. “That’s a lot of cookies.”

“I have a lot to make up for!” the man replied.

“Just a quick reminder,” Virgil cautioned. “I _am_ human, and I will keel over if I eat too much sugar.”

“I know enough about humans to not feed you enough to hurt you,” Patton said with an eyeroll. “I’ve seen humans eat more than that.”

“How do you know so much about humans?” Virgil asked.

“I’ve spent a lot of time around them,” he replied while grabbing a couple of bowls from the cabinet above the stove. “Can you get two eggs and two sticks of butter?”

Virgil nodded and moved to oblige. “You’re pretty good at acting human.”

“I’ve made a point to practice. It makes people more comfortable. There was a steep learning curve there at the beginning.”

“How so?”

“Well,” he answered. He’d grabbed a measuring cup and was measuring out some flour; his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth slightly in concentration, emphasizing the point that he was good at acting human. “Three cups of flour, by the way. First of all, it took me a long time to get my body to look right. I freaked out a lot of poor kiddos because I’d forget about the skin sometimes or forget to put things between the skin and the bones in the right places.”

Virgil shuddered involuntarily at the thought.

Patton noticed and sent him a wry look. “Mmm, exactly, but I figured out how to fix that sort of stuff pretty quickly. Sometimes I’d make the arms too long or the forehead too wide which was just enough to disturbed humans pretty bad. Even once I figured out all of the physical stuff, it still took a bit of effort to figure out how to move around right. Now it’s as easy as breathing.” He used a measuring spoon to get some baking powder and his face crinkled up into a natural smile as though to demonstrate. “Well… at least as easy as breathing is for you. ½ a teaspoon of baking powder.”

Virgil could not decide if that was funny or not.

“Now, for baking soda. No, they’re not the same things and you have to be careful to remember the difference. Baking powder already has an acid in it but baking soda doesn’t and you need something like lemon juice in the recipe in order to activate it. We’re using both because we’re using a bit of an acid, but not enough to just do baking soda.”

He continued to explain each ingredient and give him the measurements. Virgil took careful note of what he said because, if he did ever get out of this place, (Which… he was just starting to think maybe he would because, wow, that was a lot of detail Patton was giving. Who would waste that much effort if they didn’t expect Virgil to at some point make his own cookies.) it would be nice to know all of this stuff.

“Now for the butter!” he said. “You want to start off the butter and sugar in a separate bowl from the dry ingredients,” he handed Virgil an empty bowl. “Put both sticks of butter in and a cup of sugar. You want to cream the butter and sugar together in a kind of smoshing motion. Like this,” he demonstrated a couple of times and then handed it back to Virgil. Virgil hesitantly started to repeat the motion he’d just done. “Good,” Patton said with a smile. He then walked Virgil through beating the eggs and some vanilla into the sugar/butter mixture. After that, they added the dry ingredient and stirred it into a batter. Then, all that was left was the chocolate chips. “There are no measurements for chocolate chips,” Patton said sagely as he poured what was clearly far too many chocolate chips into the batter.

“I think there are measurements for them,” Virgil pointed out. “You’re just ignoring them.”

“ _Maybe,_ ” Patton said with a smile as he grabbed a small glob of dough on his finger. “Boop.” He poked Virgil’s nose with the finger. Virgil stared at him for a moment and then wiped the bit of cookie dough off his nose with his finger and stuck it in his mouth.

“Wow,” Virgil said. “I’d eat just that.”

Patton giggled, “I’ll let you lick the bowl when were done.”

After that, they got out a couple of backing sheets. “Don’t forget to…” Patton started, but Virgil was already oiling the sheet.

“I do know how to cook a bit,” Virgil pointed out. “I live alone, and I have to survive somehow. Cookies just never made it onto the list of necessities.”

“You said you have your own house?”

“Yeah,” Virgil said with a smile. There was a flicker that felt like a butterfly wing brushing past his face.

Patton started to roll little balls of cookies and Virgil followed suit. “You like it,” he said.

Even though he hadn’t phrased it as a question and Virgil was pretty sure the flicker was him reading the emotions directly from Virgil’s head, he still answered. “I mean the neighbor’s an asshole, but it’s a nice place and it’s mine. I worked hard for it.”

“That’s nice,” he said softly.

“Yeah,” Virgil replied looking away. He felt another gentle flutter and his nose twitched; his eyes narrowed a bit.

“You really will get to go home at the end of this,” Patton told him, voice tinged with sadness.

“Okay,” Virgil replied.

He could tell Patton was frowning at him even though he wasn’t looking. “Let’s get these into the oven,” he said.

Virgil helped him carry them over and then turned to him once they were in. “What now?” he asked.

“Now we start working on the next batch!”

“Wait you were serious?” Virgil asked.

“Of course, we’re going to make a lot more batches!”

“I assumed when you made three dozen chocolate chip cookies that we were just making those.”

“Well you would be mis-bake-en. Now help me wash these bowls! You can leave the main bowl so you can eat the leftover cookie dough if you want, but we need the rest.”

“What?”

“You know, like mistaken, but baking!”

“… Yes, I understood that but _why_?”

“Hey now,” he said, starting to wash one of the bowls with a washrag. “Don’t rag on my jokes.”

“You’re an eternal being with unfathomable powers and that’s the best joke you can make?” Virgil asked, picking up a dish to wash himself. Patton just smiled and sent him a wink.

Virgil shook his head and they finished washing and drying the dishes and took them all back over to the counter.

“Alright,” Patton said. “Sugar cookies next because we need to let them cool before we frost them. Oops, we forgot to wash the measuring cup.”

“Oh, I’ll wash it really quick,” Virgil offered, grabbing it.

“Oh, that’s okay kiddo,” Patton replied plucking it out of his hands. He tapped it once and the contents disappeared.

Virgil stared at the dish with his mouth gaping open. “Then _why_ have we been washing things?” Virgil asked.

Patton giggled at him. “I like doing things the human way,” he said.

“Yeah well _I_ don’t.”

“Silly,” Patton accused.

“I’m not silly! You’re silly! Who wants to wash dishes?”

“Lots of people!”

“Name one.”

“Me!”

“Name one human.”

He considered this, the skin around his eyes crinkling up as he bit his lip in thought. “John Smith,” he answered.

“Bull. Shit.”

Patton gasped, “Bad language!” and flicked a bit of flour at him.

Virgil looked down at his shirt and then back at him. Patton flicked another bit of flour at him. “What are you doing?” Virgil asked.

“Hmm.” He reached his hand into the bag of flour and tossed an entire handful at him.

“Hey!” Virgil said, jumping back. “What was that for?”

“It’s the most important part of cooking,” Patton said seriously. “Flour fight!” he tossed another handful of flour at him.

“ _What?_ ”

“It’s a game kiddo.” When Virgil just continued to blink at him, he sighed and got another handful of flour. Virgil hopped back expectantly, but he didn’t toss it, instead he offered Virgil the handful of flour, a bit of it fluttering to the flour through his fingers. Curious, Virgil stuck his hand out and Patton dropped the flour into his palm.

“You…” Virgil said, “want me to throw it at you?”

“Uh huh,” Patton confirmed with a smile.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun!”

Virgil looked at the flour in his hand. It seemed like a harmless thing. “You won’t be mad?” he made sure.

“Nope,” he said. “I promise.”

Virgil tossed the flour at him and it fluttered against him, staining his front in white. Virgil felt a laugh bubble up at the sight and Patton smiled, shoving the bag of flour over at him. Virgil hesitantly grabbed another handful of flour and threw it at him again. This time, a bit of it got on his face and hair. He got the next handful a bit more confidently, but instead of letting it hit him this time, Patton dodged out of the way.

Virgil blinked at him.

“You only get two free shots, kiddo,” Patton said. He went for the bag of flour himself then and promptly emptied a handful on top of Virgil’s head.

“Hey!” Virgil yelped and then seized flour with both of his hands and tossed it at Patton.

They and everything around them were covered in flour by the time the timer for the first batch of cookies went off. “Oops!” Patton chirped. “Guess we’ll make the next batch after eating warm chocolate chip cookies.”

He danced over to the oven and grabbed the cookies out of it. He paused and looked down at his bare hands holding the hot pan and then back at Virgil. “Don’t do that yourself,” he advised.

“I’ll make a note of that,” Virgil laughed.

He smiled and grabbed a plate, before carefully sliding a dozen of the cookies onto it.

“You expect me to eat half a dozen of those in one sitting?” Virgil asked.

Patton just winked at him and set the plate down on the table, sitting down next to it. He gestured at the other seat which Virgil took.

Virgil took a small bite of the cookie. Wow is that what cookies were supposed to taste like, he wondered. The cookie was very soft and the right amount of sweet. It felt like it could melt in his mouth and… oh no, he was going to eat half a dozen of these wasn’t he? He glared at the cookie in betrayal before stuffing the rest of it in his mouth. There was a curious flutter against his chin.

“Stop doing that,” he mumbled through his mouthful of cookie.

Patton raised an eyebrow. “Stop doing what.”

Virgil swallowed the food in his mouth. “The emotion testing thing. Just chill. I’m fine right now.”

“You can feel that?” Patton asked, curiously.

“Yeah?” he said wondering why that was weird.

“Well you couldn’t before.”

Virgil blinked at him. “Oh.” He hadn’t thought of that, had assumed Patton had been doing something different since he’d woke up.

“You’re a strange human,” Patton commented before nibbling at a cookie. “It’s impressive.”

“Is not.”

Patton gave him a playful glare. “It is,” he said. “I’ve never met a human that’s so perceptive and your ability to sense me has just grown since I went in your head.” He titled his head. “You could probably fight me off if you had enough training.”

Virgil stared at him, stunned. “Really?”

“There aren’t many humans around that could do damage to me,” Patton said, “and you did it without practice. You have a very strong will. Most people wouldn’t fight.”

“I just want to live,” Virgil said. “That’s all it’s ever been. I’m not strong. I just want my house and the rocking chair I bought used, and my mint plant on the windowsill.”

“Oh sweetie, don’t be sad,” Patton said, and Virgil didn’t even think he had to read his emotions. “It’s okay. You’ve already been here a couple of days. You’ll get to go home soon.”

Virgil forced himself to swallow his emotions the best he could. Then he looked up at Patton. “You said something about training,” Virgil recalled, “Is that something I could do? Is there a way to practice so that no one can…” It had been something he’d wished for years.

“There is,” Patton confirmed, “and I imagine you’d be pretty good at it all things considered.”

“Huh…” Virgil replied, his mind spinning. Huh.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have finally finished it. Yessss

“Close your eyes,” Patton instructed, his tone carefully soft: a suggestion not an order. Yet, there was still always a bit of hesitation that tapped against his molars before Virgil let his eyes slip closed. Patton leaned forward and brushed his fingers across his forehead. There was a crackle of fear against the wall of Patton’s chest as the kiddo went tense. “Hush,” Patton said softly. Virgil calmed after a moment, and Patton waited. Eventually, Patton felt a gentle push against his head. It was still a bit sloppy of a touch but had gotten more focused in the last couple days of practice.

Patton allowed Virgil to take the lead and more let him drag Patton into his own head rather than push forward himself.

It was a good head start that Virgil already had a semi-established mental world. He’d retreated to the space on instinct when he’d felt under attack from Patton and while it was a sparse, barren landscape, it was a good place to begin.

The first step Patton had explained to him was the necessity of some sort of wall. It wouldn’t protect against all attacks and definitely wouldn’t stop something like Patton, but a strong mental block could hault low skilled attackers and could slow down the more adept.

Virgil had taken to the instructions on building the wall well, especially since Patton’s answers to all of his questions were basically just ‘and you just make it happen and there.’ In actuality, it was just a general mental defense system with no form, but Virgil had been envisioning it as a brick wall. He’d spent half of the first lesson making the bricks and the rest slowly building up the wall brick by brick. Today, though, he seemed to be figuring out how to build the wall in larger chunks. Soon there would be a large circular wall all the way around the center of the space. Patton was impressed. His kiddo was good and smart.

_No._ Virgil thought at him sullenly.

_Yes._ Patton insisted. Patton got shoved back a bit and he was impressed by the gentleness of the move. It took some skill to control the intensity of something like that.

_Very good and smart._

_NO._

Patton grinned but back off. Instead, he chose to observe as Virgil pushed and shoved things around in his head. He gave gentle nudges of instructions but mostly let him do it on his own. It would work better for him if it was truly his own.

Eventually, he could start to feel a bit of strain floating around Virgil’s head and told him to stop. Patton pulled out and away. Both of them opened their eyes.

“Good job!” Patton said. Virgil rolled his eyes, but warmth tingled at Patton’s cheeks. His kiddo was so easily flustered. “Want food?” he asked.

Virgil nodded and yawned.

“Go ahead and lay down,” Patton suggested. “I’ll cook you up something. What do you want?”

“I dunno,” he mumbled, curling up on his side on the bed.

Patton chuckled and patted him on the head. “I’ll figure something out.” He walked to the kitchen and considered. He’d cook the human way so Virgil would get a little time to nap, but he didn’t want to cook anything that would take too long. He ended up deciding on macaroni and cheese.

Virgil had been in the prison for four days. From past experience, Patton imagined someone would be coming to check on him tomorrow if not today. It would be a relief for him and for Patton. The poor thing still didn’t quite trust that this was not an elaborate trick. Patton would be going with him of course. He’d promised him he’d teach him to block mental attacks and while the boy was a quick study, they hadn’t had near enough time. It wouldn’t be the first time Patton had spent time in the human world. It would be fun!

After making the food, Patton turned to exit back into the main room. Virgil was asleep, but easily roused with the promise of food. He wolfed down the macaroni and cheese like Patton hadn’t already been feeding him more than strictly necessary the past couple of days.

He’d polished it off in a matter of minutes. “Going to go back to sleep now?” Patton asked. Virgil thought for a moment and then shook his head.

Patton narrowed his eyes. “But you’re tired.”

Virgil thinned his lips and looked away.

Patton sighed. He could already see where Virgil’s thoughts were trying to spiral to. They’d gone over his fears again and again, but Patton still didn’t know how to convince him of the truth completely. He was clearly trying not to think about it, but his mind kept inventing more and more possible ways this ended badly for him.

Maybe it was still an elaborate trick or game that Patton was playing, or Patton was telling the truth, but the people outside would still somehow manage to forget to check on him. Perhaps they’d check on him but decide it didn’t matter that he was innocent and still leave him here or take him somewhere worse.

“Please stop worrying,” Patton requested softly. “It will only be another day or two.” Patton sat down on the bed next to him as he folded forward onto his stomach. Patton laid a hand on the back of his head. “Can’t you just believe you’re too good for a mind reader to want to hurt you?”

A pause and Patton didn’t like the way the feelings settled in his stomach. “I’m not,” Virgil mumbled.

“What?” Patton asked.

“I’m not good. Sure, I didn’t stab the guard, but I’m not really a good person. Why would you look into my head and not want to torture me? I’m bad. I’d deserve it.”

Patton stroked the back of his head with a frown. “Are you arguing for me to torture you?”

He recoiled, curling into a ball, and Patton sat back. He put his hands in his lap. “No,” Virgil said after the ball of tension in Patton’s stomach loosened after a moment. “I just, you don’t know me really. Like, maybe I don’t deserve to be skinned alive or anything, but I’m not completely innocent. If what you’ve been saying is true, shouldn’t I at least be punished for those crimes.”

“What exactly have you done in your life to make you think you deserve to be hurt?” Patton asked, genuinely curious since he could see all of the marks on his soul.

“I almost killed a man once,” Virgil said. “You know that. You mentioned it.”

“In self-defense,” Patton said softly. “You’d been badly hurt and knew you would be again. It doesn’t make you bad that you wanted it to stop.”

Virgil sniffed and Patton pushed him softly so he rolled over and Patton could rub away the tears on his face with his sleeve.

He sat up after a moment and crossed his legs. He started at the hands in his laps for a long moment. “I had to torture someone once. I tried to fight him, but he was in my head and so loud and I couldn’t stop it.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” Patton said. “You didn’t do that. That was done to you and to the person he made you hurt.”

His tears started to come a bit faster after that and then it was an outpour of stories. It was stories of horrible things and acts of cruelty that were not in way attributed to him, but that he couldn’t help but take upon himself. Patton told him so each time, explained to him each time why those things didn’t mar his soul and why he didn’t deserve to be punished for them. He continued to speak until it seemed he ran out.

Patton rubbed soft circles into his knee and waited.

He took a few seconds, rackling his brains. “I stole food when I was seven.”

“Oh, yes,” Patton replied keeping his tone light. “Now that is definitely a punishable offence.” There was a trickle of nervousness, but not enough to alarm Patton. “Let’s see,” he continued. “What do I do to seven-year-olds that misbehave?” He leaned forward to scuttle his fingers over Virgil’s stomach and then followed him when he toppled back in surprise. He squeaked and wiggled for the couple of seconds before Patton backed off. “There you go, punishment administered. You can stop feeling guilty about it now,” he said, patting him on top of the head. He got an adorable glare in return.

Patton smiled over at him. “Now it’s nap time I think.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “No.”

“Yes!” Patton insisted.

“No.”

Patton flopped down on top of him and he immediately tried to wiggle away. “You can’t just lay on top of me because I say things you don’t agree with,” he whined.

“Tell me you want me to get off you and I will,” Patton hummed, “but remember I know when you’re lying.”

He grumbled adorably and gave up the struggle. Patton pressed a kiss against his forehead, warmth pooling in his chest in a fun mix of mortification and contentment. Then he tucked his face into the boy’s neck. After a few minutes, Patton started to snore.

“You don’t sleep,” Virgil complained and wiggled. Patton didn’t respond except to smile into his skin. Virgil groaned and finally gave in to the cuddles. Patton felt him nod off about 20 minutes later and was content to continue to be the kiddos blanket for the foreseeable future.

It was about 45 minutes after he’d fallen asleep that the door to the cell finally opened. Virgil shot awake, instinctual fear rather than actual fear sending his heart racing. He tried to sit up but was impeded by Patton still laying on top of him.

Prince Roman himself was at the door. He tilted his head at the scene. “Oh, Patton’s here! Guess he was innocent after all,” Roman said.

Patton shook his head at the boy and rolled off Virgil.

Virgil’s confusion tingled through the air. “What?” he asked. He might have still been half asleep, the poor dear.

“Well, we’ll be getting no information about the assassination attempt then,” another voice said tiredly from behind the prince. Patton had never met him, but he seemed good even as Patton’s skin prickled with agitation from him. The agitation was likely aimed at the prince. Patton had to agree with those emotions at the moment. “And the assassin is still on the loose.”

“Oh, yeah,” Roman replied. “That sucks.”

The other man pressed his lips together. “I did advise you against this course of action.”

Roman waved him off with a flick of his hand. “It worked fine and now we know for sure.”

Patton stood up and crossed his arms across his chest. “Roman,” he said. “Did you send Virgil down here just to see if he was guilty or not?”

Roman looked over at him. Having known the prince since he was only two and had been sent to Patton because he was teething and wouldn’t stop screaming, Patton was easily able to tell what he was thinking. He was thinking something along the lines of ‘I don’t think I did anything wrong, but clearly you think I did something wrong. Therefore, I will act sheepish.’

“Maybe,” he mumbled.

“ _Roman._ ”

He sputtered and waved his hands around. “It’s not like anything bad happened. He’s fine,” he insisted. Except he was wrong, Patton thought. It wasn’t fine and something bad had happened.

Roman had trouble understanding the problem since his own perception was so skewed. His parents had pushed discipline off onto the dungeons so Roman had never feared them or Patton. He didn’t get why sending a potentially innocent person down here was distressing even when Patton was the one to respond.

In Virgil’s case, Patton had done his best, but the last few days had been ripe with mental and emotional anguish and re-traumatization that the boy simply did not deserve.

Patton gave the prince a look and Roman quieted, looking contrite, but not quite feeling it. Patton took a step toward him. “Stop,” he poked Roman in the side eliciting a squeak, “Sending. People. To. The. Dungeon. Because. You. Don’t. Want. To. Do. Your. Job.”

“I am a prince,” Roman squawked trying to dodge the pokes. “Cease your attacks on my majestic form.”

Patton did. “We are going to have a talk mister,” he scolded, “but for now, just tell Virgil he can go home.”

Roman gave him a confused look. A long talk then. “Of course, he can, why wouldn’t he?”

Patton left it alone for now and turned to Virgil. “Come on kiddo. You’re being let out.”

His heart flared with a bit of hope, but there was still a saddening dash of skepticism on Patton’s tongue. “Really?” he asked. He got to his feet despite his doubts.

“Of course,” Patton said. “Come on, you can show me your house.”

Virgil blinked at him in confusion. “You’re going to leave the prison?”

“Well how else am I going to continue your lessons?” Patton asked with a shrug. He turned to eye Roman. “And explain to someone why his behavior needs to change.”

Roman pouted at him but didn’t argue. He accepted his future scolding and turned towards the door to the prison. “This way,” he said.

They followed him out and down the hall to the entrance of the prison. Patton felt waves of relief crash through Virgil with every step they took closer to the outside. He immediately slumped when they stepped outside. He slid down the prison’s outer wall and onto the ground all of the adrenaline from the past few days seeping out of him.

Roman and the other man looked down at him.

“Is he okay?” Roman asked.

“Oh, Prince Roman,” Patton said. “We really need to have that talk, but for now.” He knelt down in front of Virgil and offered him a hand. “Let’s get you home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I made a new writing tumblr blog @snowdice. Asks are open.


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